


It's Only Rain

by Deannie



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Community: fic_promptly, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5718409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wanted the heat of home. The sun beating her mercilessly. She wanted something real because nothing here seemed real at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Only Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the fic_promptly prompt: Star Wars – The Force Awakens, Rey, the first experience of rain after life on a desert planet.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, we can’t really say when… or if… he’ll wake.” 

Rey nodded. Because she couldn’t do anything else. Finn lay there, as he had since she and Chewbacca had brought him back. And there was nothing she could do for him. 

“The kid’s a fighter.” 

Poe Dameron came up behind her and put a light, comforting hand on her shoulder. “He took on a fight that wasn’t his and helped save the galaxy.” He looked at Finn lying there, still, and smiled fondly. “No way he calls it quits now.” 

“He did before,” Rey said, the memory coming to her unbidden. He’d run. He’d left. _Don’t leave me now, my friend._

“He came back,” Poe reminded her. “I seem to remember Solo saying he came back for _you_.” 

Rey smiled at that, though the pain of Han Solo’s death was still a shocking open wound. “He did,” she agreed. 

She stood, silent, feeling this new Force she’d so willingly, wholeheartedly embraced. There was energy. Between Poe and Finn, her and Finn, even her and Poe, though she’d spoken to him no more than twice now. Three. 

The number held power. 

“When are you headed out?” Poe asked her, leading her away without leading, as if the connection among the three of them compelled her to follow. 

“Tomorrow. Chewbacca had some things he needed to deal with,” she told him as they walked down the dark, cold corridor toward the main hangar. She wanted the heat of home. The sun beating her mercilessly. She wanted something real because nothing here seemed real at all. 

“He and Han were friends for a long time,” Poe sighed. “I’m sure Solo would be glad you’re around to… well, to be there for him.” 

“Did you know him well?” she asked. He was leading her toward the large blast doors where the ground transports could drive in and out. She was disoriented here, unsure of the planet’s diurnal cycle. It seemed far too dark at the far end of the hangar to be daytime still. 

Poe ducked his head in embarrassment at her question. “I only met General Solo a few times,” he admitted. “But he seemed like the kind of guy to always stand by his friends.” 

Rey just nodded in response, captured suddenly by what was going on beyond the edge of the hanger door. A pattering came to her ears, though she realized after a moment that she’d been hearing it for a while. The land outside was shrouded in what would have been a dust storm back home—long, sweeping rakes of… water… batted about by the wind. 

“Rain,” she whispered, wonder filling her voice, filling _her_. 

Poe gave her a puzzled look for a moment before he nodded. “Oh, right. You’ve, um… you’ve probably never seen it?” 

“No.” A bare murmur. She was afraid to break the moment. Destroy the illusion…. 

The wind outside died a bit, and the rain now fell straight down, or nearly so. She walked right up to the doorway, feeling the spray of it hit her as the water bounced to the ground. 

She turned to him, grinning like a child in the face of his amused smile. “Can I go out in it?” 

Poe chuckled. “Of course—it’s only rain.” 

Rey steeled herself and stepped forward, jumping back immediately as the water pattered against her skin and clothing. 

“I promise,” Poe said softly. “It won’t hurt you.” Not as if he was reassuring a child, but as if he was a trusted friend. And, like Finn, he was—in surprisingly short order. 

She nodded and again, stepped into the spray. Water. Everywhere. As she stepped farther from the protection of the hangar, the rain beat her mercilessly, like the sun at home. God, maybe this _was_ home. 

She lifted her face to the sky, letting the feel of the planet—the light of the Force that was so strong in all of these people—wash over her the way the rain did. Sorrow came next: for home, for the family she knew now she would never see again, for the family she thought she might have found and now had lost in Han Solo’s passing… 

When she was a child, she would raise her face to the sun so that the heat would burn away the tears before they fell. Here, the rain did the job more gently and thoroughly and she could let the tears fall without being seen. 

“You’ll drown yourself if you keep that up!” Poe called to her. She relented and tipped her head forward and looked over at him, standing relaxed in the doorway. Behind, signs of industry abounded, and she was reminded that this was a military base. These men and women were fighting for their lives—for the life of the entire galaxy. 

And it was up to her to return one of their chief soldiers to the fold. 

She raised her face once more, embracing the rain even as she could feel the shower tapering off. There was a world here. A galaxy to explore and to defend and to fight for. And she would. 

Once she found the man her soul was telling her would give them a true chance to win. 

******  
the end


End file.
